TOUGH AS NAILS THE GAME'S HARDEST CASES HAVE RANGED FROM COURAGEOUS TO CONTEMPTIBLE TO JUST PLAIN CRAZY

Tough guys don't dance: This was the gist of Chuck Bednarik'smessage to a group of acne-prone young men when the last of theNFL's two-way players addressed participants in the Big 33 game,which each July pits high school all-stars from Pennsylvaniaagainst their counterparts from Ohio. Assembled in the cafeteriaat Hershey (Pa.) High, the all-stars listened politely whileConcrete Charlie, as he was known during his 14-year career withthe Philadelphia Eagles, told them about the final play of the1960 NFL championship game, in which he wrestled Green BayPacker fullback Jim Taylor to the turf and pinned himthere--this was legal in those days--until the game clock showedgoose eggs. Bednarik then wound up his pep talk by telling theyoung men what he had said to Taylor: "O.K., you can get up now.This ---- game is over!"

At this the schoolboys went wild. The keynote speaker droppingthe f-word. Cool! They were less enthusiastic about Bednarik'sadmonitions against "hotdogging." And, of course, two nightslater one of the kids from Ohio would be flagged for excessivecelebration. "He did some Deion routine," says Bednarik. "I tellyou, it's a different world we live in."

Indeed, even in the NFL these days, this is what passes fortoughness: San Francisco 49er quarterback Steve Young runs nineyards without his helmet, and people want to give him a BronzeStar. Young was liberated of his headgear by a blitzing SanDiego Charger safety in an Aug. 13 exhibition game and hisensuing bareheaded skedaddle was breathlessly described in thenext day's San Francisco Chronicle as "Young's naked-headed dash."

All the fuss over a nine-yard run in a preseason game tells yousomething about the state of the NFL. Rich in talented athleteswith gleaming, unspoiled orthodonture, the league isnonetheless starved for tough guys and feats of epic toughness.

But if the Gospel According to Bednarik tells us that tough guysdon't dance, how does Bednarik explain his little hornpipe overthe inert Frank Gifford 35 years ago? When the New York Gianthalfback turned upfield after snaring a pass, Concrete Charlieplayed wrecking ball to Gifford's condemned building, knockinghim out of football for a year and a half. Of the jig he dancedover his prostrate foe, Bednarik says now that he had just seenEagle linebacker Chuck Weber recover Gifford's fumble, "and Iwas yelling"--as, apparently, was his wont--"This ---- game isover!" Upon realizing the gravity of Gifford's injury, saysBednarik, "I stopped right away."

The preservation of his reputation as a tough but clean playeris clearly important to Bednarik. Other tough guys are lessconcerned with their legacy. The question is posed to ex-49eroffensive tackle Bob St. Clair, who at 6'9", 265 pounds was theleague's tallest player in each of his 11 NFL seasons: Were youa dirty player?

"You have to understand," says St. Clair, who retired in 1963and was inducted into the Hall of Fame five summers ago, "whenwe played, there was no such thing as dirty play. It was dirtyif you got caught. I was looking to head butt someone on everyplay. I'd set guys up by throwing a few cross-body blocks, thenthrow a leg whip. And at 6'9", I could leg whip the crap out ofyou."

This was a scary dude, on and off the field. In the summer of1961, St. Clair arrived at training camp at St. Mary's Collegein Moraga, Calif., in a brand-new, gold ragtop. From among therookies he selected a chauffeur--a hotshot tailback out of UCLAby the name of Billy Kilmer. After practices St. Clair wouldorder Kilmer to drive him through the orchards of Moraga. Fromhis perch atop the convertible's backseat, St. Clair kept asharp eye out for deer, which, upon spying, he would blow tokingdom come with his trusty 30.06.

"I'd throw the deer in the trunk, take them back to camp, gutthem and clean them," says St. Clair. "It was usually dark bythen. I remember once I had [rookie safety] Jimmy Johnson holdthe flashlight for me. I took my buck knife, cut myself off achunk of the deer's liver and popped it in my mouth. The lightstarted shaking. I said, 'Hold the light steady, can't you seeI'm eating?'"

Here's a scary thought: St. Clair wasn't the toughest guy on histeam. The 49ers of the early 1950s had defensive tackle LeoNomellini--"Now there was a good, tough son of a bitch," saysBednarik--and fullback John Henry Johnson, whose rampages will beaddressed presently.

But the toughest 49er--some say the toughest NFL playerever--stood six feet tall and weighed 195 pounds. Hardy (theHatchet) Brown was a linebacker who had a cruel knack foruncoiling into ballcarriers, popping his right shoulder up intotheir chins. In 1953 Eagle running back Toy Ledbetter "stuck hishead off tackle and Brown caved in the side of his face,"recalls Tom Brookshier, a rookie defensive back withPhiladelphia that season.

In 1951 alone Brown was credited with having KO'd more than 20players. Years later, in an interview with the St. PetersburgTimes, former Niner, Baltimore Colt and New York Giantquarterback Y.A. Tittle would say that in '51 Brown "knocked outthe entire Washington Redskins starting backfield, everyoneexcept Harry Gilmer, the quarterback. He retired [Los AngelesRam halfback] Glenn Davis--hit him so hard in the head he toreligaments in Davis's knee. Did the same thing to [Detroit Lionend] Bill Swiacki the next year. Hardy Brown was the hardesthitter that ever played."

Tough guys spawn legends that may or may not be true. Whileplaying defensive back in 1954, his first year with the 49ers,John Henry Johnson stove in the face of Chicago Cardinal runningback Charley Trippi, upsetting Trippi and many Card fans. "Therumor," according to a man who at the time was a highly placedNFL executive, "was that a certain 'element' in Chicago offeredto take care of Johnson. For good."

Sometimes the legends are true. High winds at a 1960 Packerpractice toppled a 1,000-pound steel tower, which landed onlinebacker Ray Nitschke, puncturing his helmet and pinning himto the turf. Teammates rushed over and lifted the structure offof Nitschke, who after taking careful inventory of his movingparts, returned to practice.

A ravening beast on the field, Nitschke was genteel andsoft-spoken off it. When Brookshier, by then a broadcaster,introduced Nitschke in a postgame interview as "The Madman ofGreen Bay," the linebacker was furious and told his old foe, ina cry prefiguring that of the cinematic Elephant Man, "I am notan animal!"

Dick Butkus, of course, could never make such a claim forhimself. In addition to wreaking more certifiable mayhem thanspace permits us to document, the legendary Chicago Bear middlelinebacker is said to have bitten a referee in a pileup duringan exhibition game, a charge Butkus has denied. On the otherhand, Conrad Dobler, a guard who played in three Pro Bowls inthe '70s during his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, theBuffalo Bills and the New Orleans Saints, makes no apologies forhaving left teeth marks on several of his opponents.

Ex-Pittsburgh Steeler defensive tackle Mean Joe Greene couldnever recall being bitten by Dobler, a testament to Dobler'sintelligence. In addition to being quick and huge, Mean Joe wasperfectly happy to take the law into his giant hands. In a 1977game he punched out Paul Howard, a Denver Bronco offensivelineman, later explaining that he was being held illegally andthus "had to go outside the rules."

The aforementioned John Henry Johnson was playing with theSteelers and carrying the ball in a 1961 game when he appliedhis forearm to the physiognomy of Ram captain Les Richter,breaking Richter's jaw. Later in the game Johnson was laid outon the L.A. sideline when a procession of Rams came after him.Johnson grabbed a sideline marker and began bashing it againstthe helmets of his antagonists and survived unscathed.

Tough guys also have high pain thresholds, though nobody eversaid tough was synonymous with smart. On the eve of his finalgame in 1962, Steeler quarterback Bobby Layne--who claimed toneed just four hours of sleep per night, saying, "I sleepfast"--nodded off at the wheel of his car and collided with whathe later described as a "parked, swerving streetcar." He wasbloodied in the crash but played the entire game the next day.

Layne brings to mind another tough guy verity: Tough guys calltheir shots. In the 1953 NFL championship game Layne's DetroitLions trailed the Cleveland Browns 16-10. The Lions had 80 yardsto go and three minutes to get there when Layne entered thehuddle and told his teammates, "Y'all block, and ol' Bobby'llpass you right to the championship." And so he did. The Lionswon 17-16.

It's one thing to play in pain--Oakland Raider center Jim Ottoendured five knee and two elbow operations but started 210straight games--quite another to play well. With a cast on eacharm in 1965 after fracturing both hands in a game the weekbefore, St. Louis Cardinal safety Larry Wilson intercepted apass thrown by Steeler quarterback Bill Nelsen. Asked to recountthat improbable pick, Wilson, now a vice president with theCards, says, "I stabbed it out of the air with one hand. It wasacrobatic."

Golly, Mr. Wilson, was it painful? "The only painful thing aboutit was that I should have scored," he says. But aftersuccessfully eluding several Steelers, Wilson tripped and fellshort of the end zone, a tough guy catching a tough break.

Chuck Bednarik is channel surfing in his kitchen on a swelteringSunday in August. "We've got the Phillies, track and field fromSweden or Indy car racing," he says.

He and Emma still live in the Coopersburg, Pa., house they built16 years ago. Back then they still had plenty of kids around."Now," he says, "it's really too big for us."

So why not move into a condo or an apartment?

"None of them take cats!" he says. The Bednariks have two cats:Spanky is 15, Sinbad is two and a kindred spirit of Bednarik's."I call him the Wild One," he says.

Well, it is suggested, you could have the cats ... dealt with.

"You mean put them to sleep?" The toughest Eagle there ever wasis mortified by the suggestion. His voice nearly breaks. "Ohno," he says, "I could never do that."

B/W PHOTO: NFL PHOTOS COVER PHOTO THE TOUGHEST QUARTERBACK EVER BOBBY LAYNE OF THE DETROIT LIONSCOLOR PHOTO: NFL PHOTOS There was no taming Lambert, who put the teeth in the middle of the ferocious Steeler defense. [Close-up of Jack Lambert showing his missing teeth]COLOR PHOTO: NEIL LEIFER Any lineup of the game's toughest men should include Wilson (far left), whose broken hands did not prevent him from intercepting a pass, and linebackers Nitschke (66) and Butkus (above), who refused to show their opponents any mercy. [Larry Wilson]B/W PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER [See caption above--Ray Nitschke]COLOR PHOTO: NEIL LEIFER [See caption above--Dick Butkus]COLOR PHOTO: NEIL LEIFER Layne (22, above) was a quarterback with the temperament of a linebacker; Otto (00, opposite) was immovable at center for 15 seasons; and Johnson was a one-man wrecking crew on both sides of the ball. [Jim Otto]B/W PHOTO: BILL YOUNG [See caption above--Bobby Layne]B/W PHOTO: NFL PHOTOS [See caption above--John Henry Johnson]